I have a foundation grant to pay me for a few days of researching local history this summer. It's great!! I gained some guidance from my curriculum coordinator earlier this month about how to target my efforts: I seek primary sources from the 1750s-1850s to illuminate daily life and major national events in the current curriculum. We also try to make students understand what historians do -- analyzing primary sources is like performing a lab experiment in science class (as I graphically described earlier). On Tuesday I got a terrific example to share with my students. As far as I know, nobody has ever published these primary sources before....

The city where I teach has some wonderfully helpful archivists and other staffers. I gave a list of names of major figures from the city's Revolutionary-period, including Timothy Jackson, who according to a secondary source had left a war diary -- that's the holy grail for my quest! He was one of many great-great-grandsons of an original settler from England (named Edward Jackson), and his son William built a house that still stands on a prominent street. Many of my students walk or ride past the Jackson Homestead.The archivist pulled out the box you see on the right, which contained various items including a day-book which is basically his financial account log. Meh, not great for kids. I spotted a "Biographical Sketch of the Late Tim Jackson Esq", a handwritten booklet. Meanwhile the archivist had a "Narrative of T Jackson", and under that was a booklet of lined paper titled "Timothy Jackson". I skimmed a few pages of the Biographical Sketch, and when she put it down I looked at the archivist's Narrative. Neither has an author listed, but the Biographical Sketch ends with "Attest, Samuel Murdock Town Clerk" .... why would a biography need to be legally attested (like a will or a marriage license)??!!

​Another thing: see below how similar the sentences are on the first page:

What is going on here?!After studying these documents for a while, I've concluded that the left-side "sketch" is the original, and the right-side "narrative" was written as a paraphrasing of the earlier piece. It might even be a younger Jackson's assignment, like Write about your grandfather's history! However, I might be wrong about this ... more consideration is needed.

But there are more mysteries, like why the handwriting seems to change between page 19 (upper-right) and page 20 (lower-left). Is it the same person?? The wider handwriting style continues for ten more pages to the end.

Even without all these documentary details and curiosities, this research discovery would be successful because of the content, especially the first-hand account of the Battle of Lexington from April 19, 1775. Timothy Jackson told the story on his deathbed in 1841, and the author seems to have recounted it word-for-word in the 1st-person. I imagine him scribbling feverishly while the old man tells the tale.... Or perhaps the writer just made it seem like a first-hand account: the handwriting is quite neat with few cross-outs and corrections.

I haven't finished reading and transcribing his account, which lasts more than 4 handwritten pages, but the existence of a very local and quite detailed personal account of this major event is enormously valuable. In later pages, he describes his time as a privateer (basically a pirate) against the Royal Navy, then being captured and suffering smallpox in a makeshift British prison. Quite a story!

The flipping awesomeness will come later. I plan to record a few videos about the discovery, and my thought process as I encountered the documents. Exactly how I will script and perform those videos....I'm not sure. Present it "live" as if I'm experiencing them for the first time? Retell my step-by-step discoveries, somewhat like I did in this post? And how much should I save for students to figure out for themselves?

Flipping is not really about the videos or technology -- it's about what you can do in the classroom.

This week I spent 3 days previewing and then reviewing several documents (by the DBQ Project) related to the question "Would you quit Washington's army?" That's all we did from Monday to Wednesday; today was for planning/prewriting their multi-paragraph responses. Some started their paragraphs today, others will do that tomorrow. I will assess the work they did by the end of tomorrow's class.

MEANWHILE, they had a homework assignment to watch and comprehend a 10-minute video about the American military's strengths, weaknesses, and main strategies. (The presenter is a colleague at my middle school with expertise on the topic. We filmed and produced the video last December.) They will take an assessment on that quiz tomorrow for about 10 minutes, before resuming work on the Valley Forge DBQ essay.

I think this is a great example of the flexibility that flipped instruction can provide. My students have absorbed essential material/content on their own time at their own pace and convenience. I devoted consecutive days of class time to skill-building and assessment -- which are both difficult to do fairly outside the classroom.QUIZ RESULTS UPDATE:

82 students took this quiz on Friday December 12, which took about fifteen minutes of class time.

72 showed solid understanding the first time they took the quiz. That seems pretty darned good to me!

8 other students gave some accurate answers but had some omissions or mistakes or were too light on specific detail. Within a few days they re-attempted the necessary question(s), which led to a score of 85% (B) in my grading policy.

1 student needed two re-attempts at the quiz because she was really unprepared the first time.

Another student never did try to retake this quiz, so his grade is still a failing score of 50%.

Who is this flipping guy?!

Andrew Swan just finished year 18 of teaching middle school (currently 8th-grade US History/Govt in a Boston suburb). Previously he has taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade English, ancient history, & geography in Maine and in Massachusetts. This was Andrew's 5th year of flipping all direct instruction, so we have more class time for simulations, deep discussions, analyzing primary sources ... and also to promote mastery for students at all levels. His 8th-grade daughter, 10th-grade son, and wonderful wife all indulge Andrew's blogging, tweeting, & other behaviors. These include co-moderating the #sschat Twitter sessions and Facebook page. ​Andrew does not always refer to himself in the third-person. Twitter: @flipping_A_tchrInstagram: aswan802